Baby sleeping bags have been popular in Europe for many years. It’s only recently they have started to catch on here too and once you try them, you’ll wonder why we went so long without them.

Baby sleeping bags, or sleep sacks, if you are not familiar with them, are like a wearable blanket that baby’s arms and head stick out of, and baby is zippered in snug, safe and sound.

They regulate a baby’s body temperature better than blankets, they can’t be kicked off, and best of all, babies can’t wiggle their faces underneath them and get trapped, or worse.

Grobag is a European import. They come in chic euro designs, three different thicknesses for different seasons, and three different sizes – Small (0-6 months) Medium (6-18 months) and Large (18 months-3 years). Grobags are expensive, running around $50 a bag, but they are excellent quality, and the bigger sizes are good value when you consider your baby will be able to use it for a year or longer. My son wore a Medium size for over a year, and it still looks as good as new after all that washing and wearing. A bonus is that every Grobag comes with a free nursery thermometer.

Lullabag is a US company, making sweet pastel sleeping bags for boys and girls, decorated with sleeping animals, and for my money, the most stylish sleeping bags around. Their bags fasten with an ingenious double-way zipper which is very useful for accessing diapers in the middle of the night, without totally undressing the baby.

Kiddopotamus & Co Beddiebye fleece sleeping bags have a fantastic feature which is that they zip around the outside of the bag, instead of up the front, so you can put a sleeping baby in one without waking them up. Trust me – you’ll appreciate that! They make two sizes to fit babies up to six months.

Halo Sleepsacks come in lots of cute patterns, and either summer-weight cotton or winter-weight fleece. The newborn size has removable swaddle “wings” that make the best, snuggest, swaddle you’ll find for a wiggly newborn.

Baby blankets are a thing of the past. Your newborn is going to wake you up a lot but with a sleeping bag, waking you up because she’s tangled up in her blankets or kicked her blankets off, shouldn’t happen.

Sleeping bags – an essential for every baby registry!